Guild Wars 2

Ryuujin.8236:

Substance E.4852:

Ryuujin.8236:

Skirmishing is definitely our weaker bread-and-butter trait line.

Skirmishing houses Quick Draw which is inarguably our most powerful trait in pve right now in both zerk and viper/sinister builds

Alright, can you explain what is so powerful about it? – I have trouble seeing what is so great about it, I can only think of a few niche uses for it and most of those are not tied to DPS

It reduces the cooldown of the next skill used by 66% after weapon swap. That is a huge bonus for any skill but makes skills like Path of Scars, Rapid Fire, and Bonfire that much better. Not taking quick draw is throwing away a huge amount of damage in either damage form.

Ryuujin.8236:

I know this one might be hard to shake because “spotter = why you invite a ranger to the party” in the minds of many.

Because it’s a fact.

Ryuujin.8236:

Skirmishing is definitely our weaker bread-and-butter trait line.

Skirmishing houses Quick Draw which is inarguably our most powerful trait in pve right now in both zerk and viper/sinister builds

anduriell.6280:

Who wouldn’t be happy with the birds to have the swiftness in F2 and the actual F2 handled by the AI?

lulwut? This is a terrible change. Nerf application of go for the eyes and Wilting strike by 400% for some superfluous swiftness?

You can also use the F2 on hawk/eagle to cancel out the kittenty swoop and swiftness skills as well as use them right after a normal attack for added burst.

No thanks…

Archon.6480:

Eggyokeo.9705:

Have you tried cc’ing the Gollum

I did, but it earned me the title “Troll,” so I decided to retreat to my dark cave instead of continuing to alienate my fellow Bearbows rangers.

You do realize that the entire point of a minion is so you can deal damage without actually attacking the person right?

There is no purpose to a pet that needs you to keep the enemy under near perma CC to make it work properly when the combined damage of the pet and player is only equal to that of other classes.

If we’re meant to just constantly attack the opponent in tandem to be viable then why is the pet even there?

What functional purpose does it serve over simply getting rid of it and buffing our damage while making F1-4 the pet skills that originate from the ranger itself?

Drayos.8759:

They reduced the strikes from 7 to 5, that is a 29% Damage Nerf, but a 50% buff to its CD, as it was Reduced to 16 seconds that is Actually a buff to its overall damage, its Just not as Bursty anymore so u cant use it to try Down someone Before they get CDs or something quickly.

lulwut? It went from 24s to 20s base. 4 is not 50% of 24…

It got a 29% damage nerf and only a 17% reduction on it’s cooldown.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Substance E.4852:

Only birds hit that hard and they already hit reliably. It’s nearly every other melee pet, aside form hounds, that is the problem.

There’s a reason no one brought cats into pvp the second they nerfed the Jaguar.

I’m currently running with 2 cats (jaguar and tiger) after using birds most of the time and actually they aren’t that bad. Bird’s F2 are easier to land but there is not very much difference when it comes to hitting with autoattacks, because even if cats have a harder time at connecting with their attacks, they waste less time with “flying circles”.

Ya, trying again with the golem and it seems that cats hit a lot more reliably than I remember. They still seem to miss a lot of their bite and maul attacks though. I think what makes them get away with the 130 range is the fact that their auto is so fast.

I mean, it might be drop rate. I just figured that items in a set would have similar drop rates but then it looks like the Mordrem Saber either hasn’t dropped yet, or it hasn’t dropped enough for anyone to TP it yet while the others are.

It will forever be a mystery I guess.

Holland.9351:

It would really suck if we don’t get improvements like all other classes with more than 1 BWE have had.

They pretty much came out and said they are done for the time being and are going back to the glacial ~4 months per major update cycle.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-road-ahead-for-2015/

We’ve reached a point where these will come bundled together in larger, less frequent updates as we prepare for the activation of additional expansion features. We’ll also be releasing limited balance updates to fix really key game-breaking issues.

CETheLucid.3964:

The concept of having a wyvern as a pet is awesome. It’s a great idea, love it. Pet classes are awesome. It’s why most of us are rangers.

Pretty sure they meant the Wyvern as in it’s skill set. Not the idea of having a Wyvern pet.

As in, someone did a quick port of the enemy mob Wyvern, tested it in combat to make sure it converted correctly, and thought “ya, that looks good” completely ignoring the horrible auto attack.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

There is almost certainly a reason its so much more than the hammer on the TP.
Usually indicates a much lower drop rate.

Staff is used by a lot more classes and is used in pve by most of them as well.

Hammer only really sees use in pve by Scrappers. Warriors and Guardians mostly only use it in wvw/pvp.

The hammer is also quite small compared to the average GW2 hammer which could also influence demand.

Plus, the staff is just gorgeous and perfect for DD and Rev.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Take a look at the new mob AI, surely some of that can be used for pets. They have said they are tied (which I feel is a pathetic excuse anyway), so why not use the new stuff?

It’s not even an issue of AI.

Pet’s path fine as is (for the most part). Better choice on when to use their other attacks could be implemented though I, and most of the rest of us, would probably rather just have full manual control of those.

The real issue is the activation times and skill range on pet attacks.

Compare cats to birds.

Birds land nearly every auto attack because the range is 300 units. They simply slide forward to hit. Cats on the other hand, have a hard time hitting an erratically moving target because they only have a 130 range attack forcing them to swipe at thin air more often than not.

The Wyvern is just the most blatant example of the issue. 2 seconds to cast a 130 range skill? Really??? If they didn’t have Wing Buffet and great F2’s they would be the absolute worst pets in our roster.

The problem would go away entirely if they simply made pet skills use an appropriate range as shown in the Moa’d Pet video.

Anet seems to be against this because it would look terrible to have pets sliding which is hilarious given that pvp is already a clusterkitten of skill effects, especially with DH traps being the new FotM.

Apparently a tiger sliding across the ground for a few feet is where they draw the line in the sand.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I wrote already, improvements are needed. But constantly hitting a target for 2-3k autoattacks or even more without the ranger doing anything would be not ok. And i don’t want pet’s dmg nerfed.

Only birds hit that hard and they already hit reliably. It’s nearly every other melee pet, aside form hounds, that is the problem.

There’s a reason no one brought cats into pvp the second they nerfed the Jaguar.

MrPersons.1560:

Strange, no idea why people keep saying that the 2gb limit is the culprit, and that I have not experienced any crashes yet. Maybe I am just lucky.

Anyway, figured I would throw the idea out to see if it helped.

I’m watching others crash in WvW and HoT constantly and I have only crashed once since the xpack released and I’m not even sure if it wasn’t just the old packet loss issue that crops up time and again.

Never mind, just had a crash out of nowhere in DS mid.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Tigaseye.2047:

I don’t mind paying for cosmetic stuff (and I have done so, in this game) but if/when a game becomes P2W, I’m out.

It’s not pay to win. Pay to win would be giving paying players mechanical advantages that can only be acquired through paying.

Instead, it’s Fee To Pay. A full priced game with “optional” microtransactions. You buy it to earn the privilege of being able to pay more.

No, the gem<>gold currency exchange doesn’t change that.

Except this isn’t a single player game like Dead Space or w/e.

This game costs Anet money to keep online.

The development team and servers run on cash and thus one will have to pay in some form or another.

Pay money in a cash shop or pay money as a monthly fee. There’s no other feasible option that has been discovered to date.

Mallis.4295:

VB is pretty empty. There’s not a lot to do there. AB/TD/DS is where everyone is now doing the meta events.

Was in TD all Sunday and not once did anyone even attempt the meta event.

Folks had no problem filing the bar to full but the final event may as well not even exist for the few that show up and watch it fail in a matter of minutes.

Once people complete their Masteries, TD will be a complete ghost town.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

What Fluffball said. If the target is on a higher level, a lot of times the attacks go right through the target and don’t hit at all.

I’ve also seen this occur in PvE. I’ve stood on a ledge while a veteran bristleback shot at me. I’ve watched all the ‘spikes’ shoot through me, but not one hit.

So, apparently, it’s an issue with the targeting system and not just the pet or mob.

The attack works only on the X/Z axis and won’t adjust to elevation. It’s the same for Staff 4.

It’s GW1 all over again -_-

Mcrocha.3891:

Substance E.4852:

Mcrocha.3891:

Lévis.5489:

Mcrocha.3891:

Lévis.5489:

I wonder how many people would cry about http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blinding_Surge_%28PvP%29/Skill_history if it was still around.

That’s not a good comparison. You can’t compare an elite skill from gw1 that you had to cast to traits like LL or Blinding Ashes that are passive procs.

It’s also cast very quickly and blind was way more potent in GW 1. All good GvG teams had a Blinding Surge ele or melee train spikes was murdering their target. It’s a lot harder to break a spike with passive procs.

No it’s not. It’s easier because it’s random. In gw1 you actaully had to predict spikes and then cast. With LL you just blind spammed every 3s. Can’t compare active skill of the player to passive procs.

Did you even play GW1? Blind was vastly more powerful than it is here.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blind

90% chance to miss for the whole duration. You never needed to predict spike because you could just spam the crap out of the skill and either prevent damage or pressure the monk to remove the blinds over and over.

There’s a reason Throw Dirt was a good skill in GW1 but would be terrible in GW2.

Yes, did you? I know that I wouldn’t try to spike when I had blind on me and would call for the cleanse.

And it would just get reapplied causing your monk to burn energy.

It was the blind equivalent of Crippling Arrow.

inb4 recipe for Endless Batwing Brew is revealed.

250 Gibbering Skulls
250 High-Quality Plastic Fangs
250 Tyria’s Best Nougat Center
250 Bottles of Batwing Brew

It’s currently glitched for some unknown reason. The knockdown from hounds will trigger AS but not the knockdown from spike trap.

Mcrocha.3891:

Lévis.5489:

Mcrocha.3891:

Lévis.5489:

I wonder how many people would cry about http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blinding_Surge_%28PvP%29/Skill_history if it was still around.

That’s not a good comparison. You can’t compare an elite skill from gw1 that you had to cast to traits like LL or Blinding Ashes that are passive procs.

It’s also cast very quickly and blind was way more potent in GW 1. All good GvG teams had a Blinding Surge ele or melee train spikes was murdering their target. It’s a lot harder to break a spike with passive procs.

No it’s not. It’s easier because it’s random. In gw1 you actaully had to predict spikes and then cast. With LL you just blind spammed every 3s. Can’t compare active skill of the player to passive procs.

Did you even play GW1? Blind was vastly more powerful than it is here.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blind

90% chance to miss for the whole duration. You never needed to predict spike because you could just spam the crap out of the skill and either prevent damage or pressure the monk to remove the blinds over and over.

There’s a reason Throw Dirt was a good skill in GW1 but would be terrible in GW2.

Ya, it seems to be bugged. The knockdown from hounds it triggering the trait but not the knockdown from spike trap.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Maybe this means the devs are now free to buff other components of Druid. Like the staff. Like increasing the radius of Seeds of Life. Like improving core ranger to work well enough that it could stand on it’s own. Maybe even synergise with Druid even more than it already does.

Ranger receiving compensatory buffs to balance out nerfs?

Probably because it causes damage before the knockdown occurs and thus won’t trigger the trait autonomously.

Minions only have the damage reduction in PvE. They are still made of tissue paper in pvp and wvw.

Kidel.2057:

Grace of the land needs a nerf, not this. The aoe damage buff is too strong. And only requires 1 druid, making 2 druids useless.

This is the dumbest reasoning for a nerf possible…

You aren’t going to get 2 Druids in fractals and we will probably already need 2 druids in the harder raid bosses. If we don’t, gimping GotL isn’t going to make people bring 2.

Eirh.1439:

Just yesterday I ran a test with the Electric Wyvern without Beastmastery against that golem and it took him more than 6 minutes to kill it.

Try to sic it on the moving golem if you really want to feel the pain.

Just be prepared to watch your stopwatch roll over completely at some point.

Aomine.5012:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Let me answer your question with a question: when was the last time you’ve heard a PvE mob complain about any class’s abilities or powers?

There’s your answer.

But, if you’re in doubt, feel free to read some of the threads on the PvP forum.

Actually there is.

A bunch of PVE Revenant folks complained about Druid outperforming their precious Ventari Spec in raid.

Even PVE folks want Ranger/Druid gutted.

And they’ll get their wish too eventually.

All it will take is a nerf to Grace of the Land or a big bump in the heals of Ele/Rev to do it.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

I honestly don’t understand why we don’t just have another keybind to access our second reliable pet skill.

Frankly, it’s simply an issue of they don’t have the code for it and don’t want to devote the resources to make it.

It’s the same reason that we can’t have saved pet names.

Chrispy.5641:

Wondrouswall.7169:

One step forward, two steps back. I hope Irenio posts an explanation to the reasoning behind such a large increase of the ICD. From 3s to 12s is a huge increase with a duration reduction to the effect on allies. Could have doubled the ICD and tested out for a while…

The fact that Anet makes such drastic changes when balancing skills makes me wonder if they do ANY internal testing at all before throwing it into the game.

Pretty much no one would have tested degenerating AF and thought “Ya, this is fun. This will work.”

oshilator.4681:

Ancient Seeds is next.

Then Grace of the Land.

Just wait….

Druid—Grace of the Land: Reduced buff to 1% per heal and reduced effect duration to 3 seconds with a 10 second cooldown.

If they’re going to nerf it into the ground they might as well just give us back the beta version. We’d have one trait for pvp, pve overworld/wvw, and one for pve instanced.

Safari Tank.6238:

Substance E.4852:

Either they never actually put it in the game or they did but never activated it.

Or it hasn’t been discovered yet

Unlikely as the entry describes it as a reward which makes it sound like a dropped crafting recipe, not a discoverable one.

Either they never actually put it in the game or they did but never activated it.

Considering Anet’s love for protecting high-roller’s TP investments, I wouldn’t count on it ever seeing the light of day or Anet acknowledging what they said.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

These are not limited, you can farm them all year long.

Look up maize balm.

Ya, about that…

“Maize Balm now only affects 1 target instead of 3.
Maize Balm now only has 1 charge rather than 3.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-October-23-2015/first#post5638234

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Substance E.4852:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s going to take a long time to completely unlock a guild hall.

The section about arenas said:
it takes 2 months for guild to unlock arenas, the whole guild hall takes about 9 months to fully unlock everything.

Better dig in for a long haul.

Maybe the full arena with all upgrades but the base arena doesn’t take anywhere near that long and I’ve heard of at least one that already had it after a couple days.

The requirements for the base version aren’t very extreme and easily gotten if you had a large supply of influence to convert.

Full buildings? Not just tents?

No idea. I just overheard in WvW TS one person telling another in their guild that the arena would be done in about a day and it was one of the big BG guilds. I have no idea if that meant unlocked or completed though I suspect they meant unlocked.

I’m inclined to believe what I heard given that it was chat between folks in the same guild.

Even if all they had was Arena Restoration 1&2 done, neither of those has a high price tag for a large, active guild.

Xenesis.6389:

Substance E.4852:

It’s a time gate. Anet put them in everything simply to keep people from blasting through guild hall construction on day 1.

There’s already a time gate with Aetherium. They could have used that alone to hold back the entire upgrade process, if they really didn’t want guilds blasting through it.

You know there’s a problem with the design when a developer comes out and tells you where the secret farm is to get the seeds everyday.

Arguably yes, but this both doubles as a way for folk hoofing it in the jungle to earn cash (just the secret farm spot in VB is ~2g) but also works as a timegate that decreases over time rather than stays static.

The only mistake they made with linseed oil was their massive MASSIVE overestimate of people’s willingness to harvest nodes.

I watched people walk right past flax on Friday when they were 40s a pop. Jon coming here and revealing a secret farm spot meant people were simply not farming at a level they had designed for.

I’d even argue that people still aren’t.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It’s going to take a long time to completely unlock a guild hall.

The section about arenas said:
it takes 2 months for guild to unlock arenas, the whole guild hall takes about 9 months to fully unlock everything.

Better dig in for a long haul.

Maybe the full arena with all upgrades but the base arena doesn’t take anywhere near that long and I’ve heard of at least one that already had it after a couple days.

The requirements for the base version aren’t very extreme and easily gotten if you had a large supply of influence to convert.

It’s a time gate. Anet put them in everything simply to keep people from blasting through guild hall construction on day 1.

Nike.2631:

NightShadow.1429:

But at least the queen bee is a drop! If you don’t want to shell out the money then you can farm for it…. there is no other way to get this except to dish out the money.

How do you think these things are entering the marketplace in the first place? People wishing real hard and flapping their arms?

There is ABSOLUTELY a way of getting these. That you’re unwilling to do it should tell you why they’re valuable.

lulwut? There are active maps running vinewrath 24/7. The queen bee is expensive because it has an extremely, EXTREMELY low drop rate.

You could conceivably run VW once a day for the next few years and never see one drop.

The idea of earning one isn’t even applicable here.

femalehumanmeta.8351:

With the tot bag nerf, they might add a mf recipe or something for the two halloween specific items required for nightfury after halloween ends.

You know they won’t.

Teon.5168:

While I do know some “higher skilled players”, most of these self proclaimed “higher skilled players”, especially those that point it out in their own posts……are nothing more than no lifers who can commit just about every waking hour to the game.

And most complaining about the game being too hard are just plain bad at video games.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Substance E.4852:

It only feels unreasonably hard because you people didn’t bother to learn the game mechanics on your way here.

This is a completely illogical assumption on your part.

(Same difference.)

I don’t think logic means what you think it means.

Either you know the game’s mechanics and can get through the content or you don’t and can’t.

Want to know the secret to how I know this? Because plenty of people have not only gotten through the content, but also didn’t find it so unreasonable as to complain about it.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here watching people get steamrolled flat by Arrowheads like Wile E Coyote because they aren’t even dodging the obvious “do not get hit by this!” barrel roll attack while meleeing.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Substance E.4852:

It only feels unreasonably hard because you people didn’t bother to learn the game mechanics on your way here.

you just ran from every fight

This is a completely illogical assumption on your part.

When did I say anyone here ran from a fight in GW2? I used running from a random encounter in a jrpg as an analogy for taking the easiest route to advance that ultimately hurts you because it leaves one unprepared.

Please don’t try to take quotes out of context, it just makes you look bad.

morrolan.9608:

Xbon.9086:

morrolan.9608:

Xbon.9086:

you have the ENTIRE core game for casual play….

So casual players shouldn’t buy HOT? Yes I’m sure anet would just love that given how badly Wildstar tanked by catering too much to the 1%ers.

What’s your vision of expansion content that happens AT the end game to progress more? If it says the same as the rest of the game, what the hell is the point of the expansion? Everything you do leads up to the expansion, and the expansion is where your skills are tried and tested to the maximum of their capacity.

Thats end/elder game content. An xpac isn’t end game its further progression. In a normal mmo an xpac will have additional levels. End game is stuff like world bosses, raids, high end fractals, PvP, high level WvW. Endgame content can be added to with an xpac but the xpac itself isn’t end game content.

You have to be level 80 to access the new areas and it’s assumed you completed the first story arc.

This is endgame content.

It only feels unreasonably hard because you people didn’t bother to learn the game mechanics on your way here.

It’s like you guys played a jrpg and just ran from every fight and then complain the non-optional boss is too hard because you never got the experience on the way there.

Behellagh.1468:

But the devs saw the Elite as a goal. They were probably expecting that if you go through the story, you would get the Elite unlocked by the time you reached the climax.

Personally instead of the 60 point unlock I would have liked to see a story element you had to do to initially unlock it. Seems strange for your Ranger to wake up one day and say “I know what I’ll do today, I’ll become a Druid”.

And yet it makes perfect sense that an accomplished engineer would be able to switch to Scrapper or a Thief to Daredevil without some epic spirit journey in the jungle.

Behellagh.1468:

250 means one HoT HP Challenge on top of full HP complete from core Tyria. For those of us who have done that in core Tyria, I like it. For those who instalevel a new character, it would now take 7 HoT HP Challenges Vs 10 if they don’t go back to core Tyria.

It’s … fairish. This was becoming a thorn, so to speak, in the side of the expansion launch. But for the love of the six Gods don’t back off the Mastery system.

You get around just enough to unlock your base class by leveling.

My necro was tomed to 80 and she doesn’t have enough points on her to even unlock the start of the elite spec by a large amount.

Bearhugger.4326:

400 hero points was fine, it’s the fact that that most of the hero challenges are group content that sucked about unlocking elite specializations.

250 points looks kind of lowish to me. I like the idea of elite specialization is part of character progression and I don’t have a problem if it takes me 1 month to fully unlock it. As long as there’s enough time to unlock the full elite specialization (while playing reasonably) before the first raid opens I don’t have a problem.

250 is just the right amount to reward people who have map completion on a character while letting those who just tome’d/EotM’d to 80 to do 25 challenges instead which is much less time than it takes to do map completion.

Silverstone.4539:

I totally agree. THEY SHOULD LEAVE IT AS IT IS. just because a few people kick up a stink they change it? what about all the people that were just happily playing the game. grow some balls Aent. You’ll lose my respect doing this change.

Cool beans bro! Meanwhile, they gain the respect of countless others who can now actually play the HoT content as the new subclasses.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

When does this take effect? Still shows 400 HP needed to completely unlock the Elite Specialization.

‘To that end, we’ll be making some changes in an update today that will address some of the things that have come up as players have dug into Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.’

Probably tomorrow at the earliest. Next Tuesday by the latest.

Orangensaft.7139:

cof takes less than 12h to get all 3 masteries 100%

maybe 7 hours

Wow, a lost less than I thought. I was just going by Brazil’s video where he said it took about 12 hours of straight farming. Though, he did say he spent some time just running laps to keep himself awake.

Behellagh.1468:

Substance E.4852:

Serophous.9085:

Looks more like self inflicted grind to me

People want the new stuff now to play with, tinker around with until they get bored. Then demand new content immediately in that short period of time.

Arguably yes, but Anet did this to themselves when they locked Fractal and Legendary Mastery behind xp grind.

Yes, it’s called leveling. It’s just a flexible leveling system that doesn’t obsolete gear.

No it just locks away pretty much of the new game features that were the selling point, and core content, of the expansion.

Anet destroyed dungeons to incentivize fractals and made a massive deal about precursor crafting and new legendaries. This is what people want to do.

If they want to bypass the pointless time gate to actually experience it then more power to them.

Behellagh.1468:

And once they speed level all their masteries they will be back complaining that there isn’t anything to do.

People are always going to complain about not enough to do in an MMO. Maybe instead of kittening at the rain, just go enjoy the game.

bloodpyrope.8630:

Leodon.1564:

Sorry for the confusion.

So a user wants to keep the current Smokescale because it offers advantages to a build that takes WHaO? Fair enough…

I’d rather it be a smoke field for general use/utility.

Yup. And that’s where things get complicated.

I think Anet can solve this problem by giving us a second smokescale. Call it a Juvenile White Smokescale or whatever, but make it’s F2 Smokefield then.

:D

Anet could actually change it by finally letting us choose which skill is the F2 skill on pets but that will never happen.